Carmine DiBiase
Carmine DiBiase (born October 27, 1922- date of death unknown) also known as "Carmine D", "Carmine Vincent" or "Sonny Pinto", was a mobster and hitman in the Colombo crime family. Biography Carmine's parents, Gustave and Lena, were first generation immigrants from Italy, and he lived with them and his brother Gaetano, in Little Italy in Lower Manhattan. He had a police record that dated back to 1940. He got married, had two children, and worked as a machinist, or a millwright, and then sometimes as a painter and a plumber’s helper, a salesman and once, as a shipping clerk. For a while he also became a tailor. On October 5, 1940, DiBiase and a close neighborhood friend, Salvatore Granello who would grow up to be a mobbed up guy, and known throughout his life as Solly or Sally Burns, tried to rob a tailor, Mike Bakalian, at 558 Hudson Street. The attempt failed, and even this early in his life DiBiase illustrated his propensity for violence by pistol-whipping the victim eight times. Carmine was arrested and convicted of attempted robbery and sentenced to a serve a term in a State Vocational Institution. According to police reports he was known in his neighborhood as a thug and a bully, with a vicious temper; he hung out at the local bars around Mulberry, Elizabeth, Hester and Mott Streets. A flashy dresser, he was known in the area as a ladies’ man. He had a scar on his left temple and upper lip, and above his wrist on one arm, a tattoo: Pinto 1949. Pete Diapoulas, the bodyguard of Joey Gallo claimed: "He was no big earner or mover. Sober he was nothing, but drunk, he would blow your head off." In February 1944, he was back inside again, this time at Elmira State Reformatory, starting another five years for the same kind of crime. He came out again, and seemed to either get somewhat improved at his job, or gave crime away, for the time being at least. The cops in New York thought of Carmine as a peanut punk, the kind of hood who would probably never amount to much. He’d been arrested eight times, including the two that sent him away. When he was released from prison Carmine leased the first floor of a building at 167 Mulberry Street, along with Michael "Mikey Evans" Errichiello, his best friend. They turned it into a bar and meeting place, calling it The Mayfair Boys Civic and Social Club. Like most of these places that dotted the streets of New York, it was a den that catered to crooks, thieves, vagabonds and workers of the night. It never obtained a liquor license, but served booze to its clients until the wee small hours of the morning. A few days before Christmas, the two friends had an argument. A big one and a bad one according to witnesses. People walking on the street past the club heard the two men shouting and yelling at each other. No one knew for sure just what it was about, but the word going around was that Mikey Evans had been cheating some of the guys playing cards in the club, and worse - had been siphoning off money collected by the club’s poker machines. Errichiello was found dead the following day slumped in a chair, shot three times. He was allegedly killed by DiBiase and a young "Sonny Red" Alphonse Indelicato. Carmine claimed he had spent Christmas day at his home, an apartment at 110 Grand Street, then he had gone to his mother-in-law’s where he stayed until late, before returning to his own place before heading back to his Little Italy social club and found Errichiello dead, and called the police. He claimed he was so drunk he could not remember anything about that night. When the homicide detectives started looking for DiBiase, he did a runner, and disappeared for seven years, the FBI put him on their most Wanted List on May 28th 1956, at number ninety-eight, where he would remain for two years. Indelicato was subsequently tried and convicted for his part in the murder of Mickey Evans and sentenced to twelve years, to be served in Sing Sing Prison. Mob hitman In August 1958, accompanied by his lawyer, DiBiase handed himself into the New York police. He was was convicted on May 3rd 1959, and sentenced to death, however on appeal DiBiase was granted a new trial and allegedly walked from court a free man on March 1st, 1961. Harold Konigsberg, a Jewish, freelance hit man for the mob, claimed that DiBiase and Joseph Yacovelli of the Colombo crime family had stalked and killed Ali Waffa, the fearsome Arab bodyguard of mobster Joey Gallo, when Ali returned from a sea journey to the Hoboken docks, in July 1963. A confidential informant notified his FBI handler that DiBiase had been involved in the murder of Michael Granello, who was the son of his boyhood crime capers partner, Solly Burns. There is an FBI report from 1969 that shows DiBiase was a suspect in running an illegal card game venue at 209 West 79th Street, in partnership with other mobsters. He was also suspected of trafficking heroin. There were other FBI reports that indicated DiBiase was working under Matthew Ianniello and Anthony Strollo a close confident of Vito Genovese. DiBiase was now a made man in the Genovese crime family and was still listed as such in a Congressional report on organized crime in 1988, although most sources claim he was part of the Colombo crime family. He was also allegedly involved in the murder of Joseph Visconi, a bouncer in The Wagon Wheels Bar on Broadway who had carried out a robbery on the brother of Joseph Yacovelli and was allegedly one of the hit men involved in the murder of Crazy Joe Gallo. On December 13th, 1972, a Manhattan Grand Jury identified DiBiase in an indictment handed up on the killing of Joey Gallo. There was no mention made of one Frank Sheeran a mob associate and hit man who was one of the alleged gunmen in the hit. It would be the last time that he and the police or the Federal Bureau of Investigation would cross paths. On November 13, 1972, Joseph Yacovelli, Carmine Persico, DiBiase, and Joseph "Fatty" Russo, of the Colombo Family, were indicted for obstructing the Russo prosecution for murder. A mistrial was declared in the case against Persico and Russo on September 25, 1973, due to prejudicial publicity relating to Persico's background. DiBiase went on the lam and was never heard from again. It was rumored he had moved to Hartford, the state capital, a small, relatively nondescript city in the bucolic reaches of Connecticut. According to Alphonse D'Arco's biography by Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins, however, he was eventually killed while on the run. Category:Colombo Crime Family Category:Hitmen Category:Genovese Crime Family Category:List of Mobsters who Disappeared